LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles City Council will decide today whether to equip paramedics with high-tech gadgets that would enhance patient treatment and streamline billing for emergency medical services.

The move is expected to boost revenue for the Fire Department, but labor unions warn the plan includes having a private company take over ambulance billing and collections. They said outsourcing would result in city employees losing their jobs.

Two contracts are before the council today — the first is with Scan Health Inc. to lease “handheld tablet personal computers,” and the second is with Advanced Data Processing Inc., whose billing and collections systems are compatible with the new devices.

With this “Electronic Field Data Capture System,” 911 dispatchers would be able to digitally transmit information about a patient to paramedics en route to administer emergency aid.

If paramedics decide the patient needs to go to a hospital, they can use the device to check which hospitals have available beds, and give doctors and nurses advance notice about the patient’s condition.

A bill for the emergency medical service would then be sent to Advanced Data Processing Inc., which would take a 5.5 percent cut of whatever it collects.

City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana recommended both contracts, saying services would be improved and money saved.

“Instituting the new system will transform the Fire Department’s emergency medical services data collection and billings and collections process from a paper-based to an electronic medium,” he said in a report.

“Because the data entry function will be performed in the field by the EMS paramedics when they create the electronic patient care record, the current office staff in the EMS Billing Unit will no longer need to perform these tasks,” he added.

The plan is to reassign the staff to perform other duties.

In his report, Santana also noted the federal government requires the establishment of electronic health records for every person in the country by 2014. He said the proposed contracts would help the city avoid being fined millions of dollars for failing to meet that requirement.

Last month, City Controller Wendy Greuel released an audit showing the city billed a total of $553 million for fiscal year 2008-09, but collected only $293 million.

According to the audit, the “most egregious” examples of uncollected funds are Emergency Medical Services ambulance rides, where the city collected only 38 percent of the money it is owed.

The audit was released the same day the city began laying off workers to cut costs.